The Cauldron Club And The Killer of Unicorns
by Morwen Tindomerel
Summary: HRH aren't the only students having adventures. Quite AU
1. Marcia

Marcia Christabelle Rumsey was a very ordinary girl leading a very ordinary life. Mr. Rumsey worked for the Home Office. Mrs. Rumsey was headmistress of Clarendon Day School. Marcia had two older brothers; Richie was in his last year at Gordonstowe and Robbie in his first at Cambridge. They lived in a 19th c. terrace house in Mayfair and had a rambling half timbered cottage in Essex for weekends and holidays.

Marcia was going to be eleven this coming September and Mummy and Daddy couldn't agree on where she was to go to school. They were arguing about it again, over breakfast while Marcia read Letters to the Times.

"Evelyn and the twins were very happy at Fairfield." Daddy was saying.

"You know how I feel about boarding schools, dear." Mummy interrupted. "I let you send the boys away for the sake of their future careers but I really think I should be given my way with Marcia."

Daddy's eyebrows went up. "You don't expect our daughter to have a career?"

"Richard! That's not what I meant at all."

Hope came in with the morning mail and Mummy sorted quickly through it. "Mine, yours, mine, mine, yours -" her hands stopped and her mouth fell slightly open.

Daddy looked up from his letters. "What is it?"

"It's for Marcia." Mummy kind of croaked, getting her daughter's full attention for the first time that morning.

"For me?" Mummy handed it over. It didn't look like any letter Marcia had ever gotten in her life. The envelope was thick and yellowish, not paper but parchment, and the address, written in green ink, was downright bizarre:

Miss M. Rumsey

Breakfast Room

342 Cardington Crescent

Mayfair

London

The contents, also written in green ink, were even stranger:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore (Order of Merlin First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Miss Rumsey,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely; Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress.

By the time she finished reading all this Marcia's mouth was hanging open just like Mummy's. She handed the letter to Daddy and he joined them in befuddlement.

"It must be some kind of joke." he managed at last.

The door opened and Hope reappeared, eyes round. "A lady to see you ma'am."

The visitor was right behind her, a very tall and slender lady in a sweeping buttercup yellow gown with dark, reddish hair coiled beneath a yellow witches hat decorated with a band of flowers. She swept forward to shake Daddy's hand then Mummy's "Mr. Rumsey, Mrs. Rumsey, a pleasure to meet you." she turned a beaming smile on Marcia. "And this is your daughter of course. I see you've gotten your Hogwarts letter, my dear."

None of the Rumsey's could get out a word in reply.

"My name is Grunnion-Ffitch, Helaine Grunnion-Ffitch. " the visitor continued brightly. "May I sit?"

That brought Daddy at least partially to his senses. He half rose with a little bow. "Please do, Miss - er."

"Mrs. - Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch." the lady said settling in the fourth chair at the breakfast table. She bestowed a reassuring smile on the stunned family. "I understand how surprising and bewildering this must be for you."

"Yes indeed!" Mummy said with emphasis. "You know something about this letter, Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch?"

Another brilliant smile. "All about it. You see my dear Mrs. Rumsey your daughter is a Witch."

"I beg your pardon?" said Daddy.

"A Witch." the lady repeated. "As of course am I." She pulled a short, polished stick of wood from her flowing sleeve. "Allow me to demonstrate." waved it and the centerpiece turned into a cauldron filled with a pretty lilac purple liquid. A gold and glass goblet appeared in Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch's hand and she dipped out some of the liquid and sipped it.

"Ah, excellent. Do have some." three more goblets appeared in front of the Rumseys and filled themselves.

Marcia took a swallow of hers. It was delicious, tasting of apples and orange-blossoms. Immediately she felt less confused and not at all frightened. Mummy and Daddy too relaxed visibly after drinking some of theirs.

Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch smiled. "Good. Now you can listen calmly can't you?" All three Rumseys nodded agreement. "Of course you know all about Witches and Wizards from old stories but you thought we no longer existed, if we ever had, isn't that right?"

The Rumseys nodded again.

"In fact Britain has a fairly large Wizarding population living secretly alongside you Muggles - Muggles being what we call non-magical people. The power is hereditary of course but sometimes, for reasons we don't quite understand, it appears in people of Muggle heritage like young Marcia here.

"When this happens we customarily offer the child a chance to develop her powers and join our world. Hogwarts is the premier school of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Europe," she flashed a smile, "though I say it as shouldn't being a graduate. Marcia will learn how to use her gifts there and be prepared to pursue any one of a variety of careers in the Wizarding World. Are you interested?"

Daddy cleared his throat. "Er, what happens if we're not?"

"Nothing at all." Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch said calmly. "I will perform a simple spell to erase this entire incident from your memories and you go on with your lives as before, if that is what you want."

"I can do magic?" Marcia burst out, a bubble of excitement growing in her chest.

"Indeed you can." the lady smiled kindly at her. "Haven't things happened to you? Things you can't understand?"

They certainly had. "That's why, why birds talk to me?"

Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch's eyebrows went up. "An Avismouth eh? Very impressive. Yes, my dear, that is exactly why."

Mummy cleared her throat. "We thought it was just imagination."

"Of course you did. But it's not."

Marcia was almost too excited to talk. "Can I go?"

Daddy asked; "Exactly where is this Hogwarts?"

"In Scotland, outside a Wizarding community know as Hogsmead."

"I want to go." said Marcia.

Mummy said; "We'd like to visit the place and talk to her teachers."

"Of course." said Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch. "Very natural. We have a special orientation for Muggle parents July 25th." a roll of parchment and a quill appeared on the table in front of her. "Shall I put you down?"

"Please." said Mummy.

Marcia sighed in relief and hoped Hogwarts would measure up to her parents' standards.

*****

Mummy and Daddy came back from their visit decidedly bemused.

"Very odd place." was all Daddy would say about it. "Very odd indeed!"

"Still the teachers seemed quite satisfactory on the whole." said Mummy. "Very sensible and responsible in their way."

"I was impressed by the Headmaster." said Daddy, cracking a faint smile.

Mummy smiled too. "Oh yes indeed!"

"So I can go?" Marcia asked, wanting to get things quite clear.

"Yes, dear, you can go."

****

"So," said Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch cheerfully over her own breakfast table, "it's all settled. We'll take Marcia shopping with us tomorrow. Her parents will drop her off at the garage."

"Sounds like they took it very well." her husband, Frederick Ffitch, observed.

"The potion of peace helped of course but the Rumsey's are also very sensible, intelligent people." said Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch approvingly. She turned to her daughter. "You and young Marcia will be in the same year. Maybe you can be friends."

"I hope so." Rowena Grunnion-Ffitch said politely. She already had friends of course, Wizarding friends, but as Great Gran'ther always said you could never have too many and Muggle-borns generally did need a bit of help fitting in, at least at first. Daddy had, and no doubt Marcia would too.


	2. Morag

Morag Aileen MacDougal was also a very ordinary girl. Her father was a broom designer for Nimbus. Her mother ran an apothecary shop on the road at the end of the long drive leading to their stone farmhouse in Dumfrieshire. Morag shared a loft bedroom over the kitchen with her older sister. She opened her eyes to the morning sun shining through the gable window and a smell of sizzling ham and eggs. Isobel sat up, yawned and stretched in the bed across the way.

"Girls, girls," Mums' voice floated up the crooked little back stair, "your Hogwarts letters are here."

Hogwarts! bedclothes went flying as both sisters shot downstairs not pausing for slippers or dressing gowns. Morag took her letter, addressed to Miss M. MacDougal, Bedroom over the Kitchen, Stonycroft Farm, into hands trembling with excitement, scratched Truewit's tummy feathers in thanks and sat down at the table to read it.

Isobel was already frowning over her list of third year supplies. Dads was drinking his second cup of coffee while reading the Dailey Prophet hovering above the table in front of him. Morag's three younger brothers whispered and poked each other while their oatmeal went cold.

"Oh girls!" Mums waved her wand and slippers and dressing gowns appeared on her daughters. She carried the huge platter of fried ham and eggs to the table, then leaned across it to tap each of her sons' bowls with the tip of her wand, reheating the oatmeal. "Eat your porridge, boys." she said as she settled into her place opposite Dads'.

Morag was surprised to see her mother also open a green addressed yellow envelope. "What's that, Mums?"

"A note from Professor MacGonagall." she answered, reading it. "There's a Muggle-born student who needs taking under wing. A girl named Hermione Granger." the flowered teapot poured her a piping hot cup and a pair of iron serving forks helped her to eggs and ham. "I'll apparate straight over after breakfast."

"Here's hoping this family takes it a bit more calmly then the Fraziers did." said Isobel cynically.

Her mother gave her a slightly disapproving look. "We must be tolerant, dear. It's a very great shock to Muggles to find out the world isn't at all what they thought it was."

"Very true." Dads agreed, gesturing for his paper to fold itself and zip over to the kitchen dresser. "And remember, our world is as strange to them as theirs is to us."

And given how dead queer Muggles were that must be very weird indeed Morag reflected putting her letter carefully back in its envelope and tucking both inside her dressing gown.

Letters or no letters there were still chores to do; chickens to be fed, beds to be aired, washbasins and towels to be cleaned. Morag took care of all the upstairs work while her older sister took over Mums' jobs of cleaning up the kitchen, tidying the downstairs and opening and tending the shop. It was midmorning before Mums reappeared, popping into existence in the back room where Morag was stirring a sleeping potion. She looked slightly wilted.

"Was it bad?" her daughter asked sympathetically.

Mums smiled faintly, removing her witches hat and smoothing down her dark hair. "Not really. The parents were quite calm and sensible for Muggles, and the girl is very eager indeed. She pounded me with questions. I'm exhausted from answering her!" Mums took a small smoky glass bottle of revivifying potion off a shelf, poured a little of the electric blue liquid into a shot glass and swallowed it down. Bright blue sparks coursed over her body and shot out of her eyes. Color flooded her face and she stood straighter. "We'll be taking her with us when we do our school shopping."

"What's her name?" Morag asked.

"Hermione Granger."

The shopping expedition was set for the 27th of July but as the weeks passed Morag found herself wondering just how her parents were going to manage without her, a country household doesn't run itself even with magic. Who was going to help with the washing and baking? Churn the butter and make cheese? Tidy the bedrooms in the morning and sweep out the house on Thursdays?

"Kevin of course." said Mums calmly when Morag asked.

"Kevin!" that was the eldest of her three little brothers and a more useless and irresponsible boy would be hard to find. "He's just a kid."

Mums smiled. "He's exactly the age you were when Isobel went off to Hogwarts."

"I suppose he can handle the chickens." Morag conceded. "But the dairy and the baking and the washing - never!"

Mums laughed out loud. "That's almost exactly what Isobel said about you, Morag dear. Kevin will learn, just as you did."

"I know how you feel." Isobel told her later, making a face. "The hardest part was keeping my mouth shut on vacations when you did the work differently than me."

Morag was offended. "What was wrong with my ways?"

"Nothing," her sister said soothingly, "nothing at all except they weren't mine. You'll understand when you have to sit by and watch Kevin managing things."

Morag shuddered at the thought. "He'll keep lizards in the dairy and break all of the crockery!"

"No he won't." Isobel answered. "Mums and Dads will whip him into shape in no time. Just like they did you and me."

Morag had never realized how possessive she felt about her dairy and her linen closet. The thought of Kevin - dirty, careless, clumsy Kevin - mucking about with them was actually painful.

He of course was airily confident. "Can't be all that hard if you do it." he would say. And "Fuss, fuss, fuss!" when she tried to drop him hints.

"Leave it, sweetheart." Dads said, when she went to him to complain. "After September 1st the house isn't your concern anymore. Your mother and I want you to concentrate on your schooling."

"Which isn't going to be easy with mildewed sheets, shrunken clothes, burnt bread and tainted butter." Morag snarled to Isobel in the privacy of their bedroom.

"It won't be like that. You'll see." her elder sister said soothingly.

The morning of the shopping expedition was warm and muggy and threatening rain. Morag hoped the weather would be better down south as she turned mattresses, made the beds and washed the bedroom crockery. She finished up in her own room, changed her workaday dress for a set of brown going-to-town robes, frowned savagely at the freckled face and bushy fox red hair in the mirror, collected her letter from the little box by her bed and hurried downstairs.

Mums and Dads were both waiting in the big kitchen. "Ready?" Mums asked. "All right come here between us," each parent took a hand, "and hang on tight."

Morag swallowed and gripped as hard as she could knowing what was coming. Apparating is a very unpleasant sensation, especially when you're being carried by somebody else, though two sharing the load did make it a little easier.

The three of them appeared in a room with sea green walls, right in front of a white marble mantle. The three people waiting jumped. Morag didn't hold that against them. Apparation was a little startling even for Wizards.

Dads dropped her hand and stepped forward to shake that of tall brown haired Muggle man. "Dr. Granger? Eachan MacDougal." he turned to the woman, who was small and blond and pretty. "Please forgive my popping right off again, Mrs. Granger, but I must get to work. Just thought I'd drop my womenfolk off and say a quick hello." he included them all in a quick smile. "Hello then, and good-bye." and apparated out.

Mrs. Granger closed her mouth, swallowed and pasted a determined smile onto her face as she turned to Mums. "How nice to see you again, Mrs. MacDougal. It's really very kind of you to take all this trouble."

"Not at all -" Mums began. Morag didn't hear the rest, as the third person in the room seemed to suddenly notice her and pounced. Hermione Granger had a lot of brown hair, as bushy as Morag's own, and a pair of prominent front teeth. She also had a loud, bossy voice that drowned out whatever the grown-ups were saying:

"You're Morag of course. Your mother told us you're starting at Hogwarts too this year. I must say this has all been quite a surprise for me, and for the parents too. I mean odd things have happened from time to time but I never suspected for a moment that I was making them happen. I never dreamed I was a witch! It's very exciting isn't it? but of course you wouldn't think so since you've always known you were one. It must be amazing growing up magical, I wish I had.

Hermione finally took a breath. Morag opened her mouth but the other girl immediately forged on: "I've been down for Smithton since I was three. It's a very good school, very demanding academically, Mom and the aunts went there. I was looking forward to it but of course I couldn't turn down a chance like this! I mean a talent like magic should be developed don't you think? Dad and Mom have always said it's very important to achieve your full potential and I quite agree. So it would be a frightful waste to just ignore the fact I'm a witch! It seems so odd to say that but it's true isn't it? Eurydice, that's my sister, is frightfully jealous. It seems she's not magic at all, isn't that odd? But Mrs. MacDougal says that's how it happens sometimes. You have a sister already at Hogwarts don't you?"

Morag opened her mouth again but before anything could come out Hermione was going on: "And brothers too. I always wanted one but Mom and Dad think two children is quite enough. Overpopulation you know. Mrs. MacDougal says your people don't have that problem. Oh my, they're my people too aren't they? How amazing." That thought seemed to finally silence her.

"Girls, time to go." Mr. Granger said into the sudden quiet. Morag hurried gratefully to her mother's side.

Mums smiled down on her. "We're going to go in a car, isn't that exciting?"

It was rather and Morag got to enjoy the experience in peace as Mums sat between her and Hermione and so absorbed the brunt of her conversation. Great Merlin, did the girl ever shut up? Morag was definitely not taking a fancy to her new classmate.

The car was somewhat larger than the one in Isobel's Muggle Studies book, and gray instead of bright blue. But it was a metal shell on wheels with cushioned seats inside just as described. Mr. Granger controlled it by means of a fifth wheel in front of his place.

Looking out the window Morag saw hundreds and hundreds of other cars in all sizes and colors, rolling along in neatly ordered formations, starting and stopping and turning in concert. However did they all know what to do and when to do it?

The sidewalks were crowded with people, all looking very odd in trousers and short dresses, so many Muggles! No wonder they were worried about overpopulation.

Mr. Granger brought the car to a stop right in front of the Leaky Cauldron. Normally of course Muggles couldn't see the place but Mums took care of that. As they went through the door Morag found herself next to Hermione and forced to listen to her continuous commentary:

"So this is a Wizard pub? Small isn't it? Is it always this dark? Are those ladies witches? Of course they are, regular people don't come in here do they? Is that stair held up by magic? It looks like it might fall any minute. I suppose there are rooms to stay in upstairs? Do they serve food here? Maybe we can have tea after we buy our school supplies -" By now they were in the walled back yard with its ashcans and weeds. "My goodness, wizards use dustbins too, just like us unmagical people. Can't you just disappear rubbish or something? What is Mrs. MacDougal doing?"

Mums had taken out her wand and tapped a brick in the middle of the back wall. For an instant nothing happened then Hermione gasped and the elder Grangers recoiled a few steps as the bricks flowed and rearranged themselves into a broad arch opening onto a crowded, crooked little cobbled street.

"Diagon Alley." said Mums.

Hermione was, finally, quiet.


	3. Rowena

Rowena Cordelia Ariana Grunnion-Ffitch was not an ordinary girl. She had very distinguished parents; Dad was the inventor of the Mobilis Perpetuum spell and Mother had not only successfully crossed creeping gromwell with thyme creating the creeping thyme plant but was the first witch to breed Kraken weed in captivity.

They and Rowena's younger brother Goderic lived with her maternal grandparents in a house 'High Wizardry Weekly' called a masterpiece of topographical magic, created by Grandpapa, who the same journal called the leading metaphysicist of the age.

Grandmama was just as famous for deciphering the Etruscan spell script opening up a whole new field of ancient magic. And then of course there was her father, Rowena's great grandfather, who people called the greatest wizard alive. All in all it was quite a lot to live up to and there were times that Rowena rather wished she were ordinary.

She went out of her bedroom and down the stairs into an excessively long hall, past the doors to the drawing room, Grandpapa's laboratory and the seashore, and into the breakfast room. Grandmama and Great Gran'ther were already there, eating kippers and eggs, both dressed alike in flowing purple robes with a silver 'W' worked over the heart.

"Good morning, dear." said Grandmama.

"Hot chocolate, Rowena?" asked Gran'ther with a smile over his half-moon spectacles.

"Yes please." she took a muffin and a bunch of grapes from the sideboard and sat down at the big round table. A gently steaming cup floated over to settle by her plate. "Thank you, Gran'ther."

"Ludovic not joining us?" he continued to Grandmama.

She made a disapproving moue. "Not today. Right in the middle of a very important experiment - he says!" Gran'ther laughed and Grandmama's face relaxed into something more like a smile. "I know, it's hard to blame him for skipping these routine sessions but still office has its responsibilities."

"Now, now, my dear Albionne," Gran'ther answered, twinkling, "you know as well as I do that Ludovic was chosen for the prestige of his name and that half the wizengamot never attends at all. Just as well really, if we should ever all show up we'd have to hold our meeting in the atrium." Grandmama laughed and he turned his attention to Rowena. "Shopping for your Hogwarts supplies today, and showing a Muggle-born student the ropes I hear."

"Yes, sir." the parents had often taken Muggle-borns in hand before but this would be the first time Rowena was involved. "Her name is Marcia. Mother says she's an Avismouth."

Gran'ther beamed. "So I hear. Very promising indeed. She might be another Cliodna or Morgana."

"Odd how often Muggle-borns are unusually gifted." Grandmama remarked. "Look at Frederick," that was Rowena's father, "finest Magical engineer since Pythagoras Whirligig."

"Mama, my blushes!" Dad cried, walking in at that moment wearing his usual working costume of carpet slippers, flannel trousers and baggy linen jacket. Frederick Ffitch had a persistent preference for Muggle clothes despite his thirty odd years in the wizarding world and only donned robes for formal occasions.

He dropped a kiss on the top of his daughter's head, loaded a plate with fried eggs and bacon and sat down next to her. "Fresh blood, Mama, that's the key. This world of yours would have collapsed long ago without a constant infusion of fresh blood from mine."

"I believe you're right, Frederick." Grandmama agreed, pouring him a cup of tea. "We Dumbledores are called pure-bloods but a glance at our pedigree shows Muggle-borns married in every three or four generations. Same for the Grunnions."

Dad snorted. "No such thing as 'pure blood'. Too pure you die out. Hybrid vigor that's what's you want!."

"I quite agree." Gran'ther sighed. "This obsession so many wizards have with a 'pure' magical lineage..." he shook his head sadly.

"We Muggles used to be just as silly." Dad assured him. "A lot of nonsense about race and class and the like. Not quite gone even now, but at least it's going."

Gran'ther sighed again, his usually merry face gone wistful. "I had hoped it was going in our world as well but, alas, it seems to be making a comeback."

The ormolu clock on the mantle grew legs and did a flamenco to the strains of 'Carmen'. "Time to go." said Grandmama, folding her napkin. "Come along, Father."

They both stood. "Bring your new friend back to tea, Rowena, I'd like to meet her." said Gran'ther. Then he and Grandmama vanished with a pop.

Dad frowned as the clock finished its dance and settled back in its place. "Where is your mother? Nod!"

A house-elf, neatly clad in a pair of monogramed handkerchiefs, appeared with a pop. "Yes, sir?"

"Would you please remind Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch we have company due any minute now?"

"Of course, sir." he popped out.

A carillion of bells echoed through the house. "To late!" Dad grabbed a last mouthful of bacon, Rowena picked up what was left of her grapes and both hurried out of the room.

Far down the long middle hall Blinkin appeared out of thin air to open the battered wooden door to the garage. "Good Morning, Madam," Rowena heard him say politely to the visitors, "Sir, Miss. Please come in, you are expected."

****

Mummy steered the car slowly and carefully down the narrow, winding mews alley while Daddy and Marcia watched the numbers. It was garages mostly, and used car shops, repair shops and parts shops some with flats above.

"36!" Marcia and Daddy cried, almost together. The big door slowly rose and Mummy drove in as instructed, parking beside a little blue mini.

A garage seemed like a very strange place to meet a witch. What did Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch need a car for? The Rumseys got out of their MG. There was a little wooden door at the back of the garage with a bell pull beside it. Daddy rang or tried to, nothing seemed to happen. He tried again.

The door opened. A small, spindly creature with huge, mirror-like eyes and great sails of pointed ears dressed in a sort of shawl and kilt made of handkerchiefs stood blinking up at them. "Good morning, Madam, Sir, Miss. Please come in, you are expected."

The three Rumseys were too paralyzed with astonishment to obey. Then a startlingly ordinary looking man in carpet slippers appeared in the doorway beside the elf-creature, looking slightly out of breath. He smiled brightly and held out his hand; "Mr. Rumsey I presume. And of course this would be your lovely wife - and your little girl. Please do come in."

Stepping through the door after her parents Marcia found herself standing in a very long and very high hallway lined on two levels with doors of all shapes and sizes and ceilinged with what looked like panes of glass painted with leaves and vines. She also saw a girl her own age dressed in an old fashioned pinafore dress with reddish blond hair hanging down her back and a pair of spectacles perched on an unusually long nose in a thin pointed face.

The man was still talking: "I'm Frederick Ffitch, and Muggle-born myself so I know exactly how odd and confusing all this must be to you. My wife should be joining us at any moment -"

And she did, appearing out of nowhere with a pop, wearing an earth stained linen smock. "Do forgive me, Mrs. Rumsey. I was working in my garden and lost track of time. I see my husband has introduced himself, and this is our daughter Rowena." Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch smiled directly at Marcia. "She's starting at Hogwarts this year too."

"Hello." said Rowena.

"Hello." said Marcia.

Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch took out her wand and tapped herself on the head. Her smock vanished and a forest green witches hat appeared matching her robes. "Shall we go?"

She led the girls off down the long hallway. Behind them Marcia heard Mr. Ffitch inviting her parents to stay for a cup a tea. "I'm sure you have lots and lots of questions."

She snuck a cautious glance at Rowena. The witch-girl looked exactly like Alice in the book except for the nose and the straight hair hanging to the backs of her thighs. Their eyes met and Marcia blurted: "What was that that answered the door?"

"Blinkin, one of our house-elves." she answered readily. "We have three brothers; Winkin, Blinkin and Nod. They cook, clean, that sort of thing."

"Oh I see. Like Brownies."

"Very good." said Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch approvingly. "You've read the right kind of books, my dear."

"I love stories about magic." Marcia admitted. "I always wished I was magic - and I am!" she ended on a note of surprise.

"You are indeed." Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch opened a bright green door and they went down a step into a narrow, cobbled street lined with funny, old fashioned buildings and crowded with witches and wizards in long robes and pointed hats, just like the illustrations in Marcia's storybooks. "This is Diagon Alley, we can buy everything you need for school right here. But first we stop at Gringotts to exchange your Muggle money for Wizarding coins."

"Gringotts?" Marcia echoed.

"The Wizard bank." Rowena explained. "It's run by goblins."

Marcia's eyes popped. "Goblins!"

"It's all right." Mrs. Gurnnion-Ffitch said quickly. "They're not anywhere near as villainous as stories would have it. In fact they're quite decent in their way. Nothing to be afraid of."

Marcia continued to look dubious and, having read some of those same stories, Rowena couldn't really blame her. Muggle books about wizards and magical creatures could be surprisingly accurate at times, and clearly reflected some memory of the Goblin Wars but without the background context. Rowena knew her history and so knew the wars had been six of one and half-dozen of the other with plenty of blame to go around on both sides.

Marcia slid closer to Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch as they went up the marble steps of Gringotts and was careful not to stare at the goblin standing guard at the tall bronze doors or the two flanking the inner silver doors.

The vast white marble hall was lavished with gold. An immensely long stone counter supported by what didn't seem like nearly enough carved and gilded trestles ran around two sides with goblins sitting on high stools behind it. Wizards and witches were queued up on the other side of the counters. Many were accompanied by children, Marcia's age and up, some wearing regular looking Muggle clothes others old fashioned outfits like Rowena's.

Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch headed straight for a short queue at the end of the side counter. A balding man in Muggle dress seemed to be arguing with the goblin in charge while a boy in jeans and t-shirt fidgeted nervously behind him. A couple, also in Muggle dress, stood next to a witch in peach colored robes and hat and two little girls; a red haired one in brown robes and a brown haired one in a blouse and skirt.

"Flora! how nice to see you." Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch said to the witch.

"Hello, Morag." Rowena said to the red haired girl. Then to Marcia, "This is my friend Morag MacDougal. And this is Marcia Rumsey, who's starting Hogwarts like us."

"Hi." said Morag, then almost reluctantly: "This is Hermione Granger, she's going to be in our year too."

"Hello!" said Hermione in what seemed to Marcia to be an unnecessarily loud voice. "You come from a non-magic family too, don't you? Muggles as the wizards call them. Isn't it terribly exciting? I never dreamed I was a witch, did you? Hogwarts sounds amazing, I can't wait to start, can you? It's likely to be a hard slog, at least at first, being so very different don't you think? Mind you I've always done well at school, hard work that's the key. Of course it helps that I love to read. Mrs. MacDougal says they have a wonderful magical bookstore here, I can't wait to see it!"

Marcia opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, but soon realized Hermione wasn't interested in answers to her questions. Judging by the way they were looking at her Rowena and Morag weren't liking this loud, bossy girl any better than Marcia did.

Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch rescued her from Hermione's monologue; "Your turn, dear."

Marcia opened her purse, took out the roll of notes Daddy had given her and put it on the counter, risking her first real look at a goblin. It was like a little, dark woman with sharply angular features and long spidery fingers. Marcia flinched a little when the clerk reached for the money and got a surprisingly kindly smile.

"No need to be frightened, little girl. I won't bite you, if you don't bite me!" That startled her into a laugh and Marcia relaxed a little. The goblin lady whisked the pound notes out of sight. "Give us your purse, child." she produced what seemed like a huge pile of glittering coins. "Gold are galleons." she said, pouring them into the purse, "Silver are sickles, seventeen to a galleon; and bronze are knuts, twenty-nine to the sickle. Got that?"

"Yes thank you." Marcia answered, taking the purse as it was pushed towards her and nearly dropping it, it was so heavy."

"Good. Next!"

Marcia stepped away from the counter rather reluctantly. Hermione Granger was still holding forth to the other girls while the adults stood by chatting among themselves.

Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch gave her a quick smile. "Ready? Good. Let's get on shall we, lots to do."


	4. Diagon Alley

Hermione Granger never stopped talking. She jabbered relentlessly away as they bought their cauldrons, scales and phials; exclaimed loudly and continuously over the odd things for sale in the apothecary shop; lectured on the excellencies of ball point pens and word-processors at the stationary shop while they were buying their quills and parchment; and went on about the special astronomy course she been allowed to take at her prep school when they got their telescopes.

Marcia was ready to scream or cry. This horrible, horrible girl was ruining what should have been a fun and fascinating outing. Morag's face was almost as red as her hair but her glower didn't have the slightest affect on Hermione, nor did Rowena's increasingly pained stare. Even the adult witches were beginning to look strained. Dr. Granger was apparently too used to his daughter's constant monologue to notice anything wrong but Mrs. Granger did murmur an occasional, ineffective, "Do hush a moment, Hermione."

Then they went into Flourish and Blots and Hermione gave a little gasp, "Books!" and finally fell blessedly silent.

Marcia barely noticed, entranced by the most fabulous bookstore she had ever seen or even imagined. Shelves to the ceiling were stacked with books and more piled on the tables crowding the floor. There were books of all sizes and colors from huge leather covered tomes to dainty silk covered monographs barely large enough to cover a palm. Books written by hand rather than printed, or in strange symbols and alphabets. Books with titles like 'Basic Hexes for the Busy and Vexed'; 'Guide to Medieval Sorcery'; 'Sites of Historical Sorcery'; 'Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century'; 'Sonnets of A Sorceror' and 'Old and Forgotten Bewitchments and Charmes'. All four girls happily lost themselves in the stacks while the grown-ups bought their school books for them.

"What's Arithomancy?" Marcia asked Rowena reading the brass plate at the end of a stack.

"The magical application of number. Very advanced Wizardry." she answered.

"Math isn't my best subject." Marcia said dubiously.

Morag slipped around a high piled table to join them. "Managed to shake Hermione," she reported gleefully, "she's glommed onto one of the clerks."

"Poor thing." said Rowena.

Morag shrugged. "Oh he won't mind if she buys enough books."

"I meant Hermione."

The other two girls stared. "She's awful!" said Marcia

"A nightmare." Morag agreed.

"I know." said Rowena. "And nobody likes her. It's sad."

"It's no more than she deserves." Morag said empathetically.

It's her own fault," Marcia ventured, "if she just didn't talk so much -"

"I doubt she knows why everybody takes a dislike to her." Rowena said quietly.

"Somebody should tell her." Morag snorted.

"When'd they get the chance?" Marcia asked dryly.

Flourish and Blots had a huge and fascinating history department - Marcia's favorite subject. It was Rowena's too so she could tell Marcia which books were worth getting and which weren't. "Don't bother with that one." she kept saying, and: "I've got an extra one of those at home you can have." Then Morag dragged them over to the potions section which proved equally fascinating with its herbals and grimiores.

"Fillet of a fenny snake, in the cauldron boil and bake;" Marcia said to herself, "eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog; adder's fork and blind worm's sting, lizard's leg and howlet's wing -"

"What's that?" Morag asked sharply.

Marcia started a little at her tone. "It's from Shakespeare, Macbeth, the scene with the witches."

"Shakespeare?"

"A very famous Muggle writer." Rowena told her, then with a smile to Marcia: "That's part of a recipe for a very nasty brew indeed. Black, black magic."

Marcia stared. "Really? but how could Shakespeare know -?"

Rowena shrugged. "The Muggle world and ours were closer in those days. He could have known a witch or wizard."

"More like a hag if he was learning that sort of magic." Morag said, then: "Better not let anybody else from our world hear you saying that."

Rowena nodded agreement. "It would give the wrong impression."

"I won't." Marcia assured them hastily.

They met again at the sales counter, each girl carrying a tall pile of books. "Do I have enough for these?" Marcia asked Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch worriedly, showing the contents of her purse.

The witch counted out seven gold coins and nine silver. "That will cover it, and leave plenty for your robes and wand." she said reassuringly.

Wand! A magic wand!

Hermione's gabbling resumed as they went next door to 'Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions' but Marcia scarcely heard her, being more interested in snatching peeks into her new books.

Madam Malkin's robes weren't ready to wear straight off the rack like Muggle clothes but had to be tailored to measure, which meant standing on a stool while a witch-seamstress pinned then directed magical, self sewing needles.

A set of robes consisted of a straight, ankle-length gown under a very full, floor length robe with extremely wide sleeves hanging to the knees. There was a light-weight cotton set for warm weather. Medium weight woolens and heavy wool for cold.

Looking at herself in the three way mirror in the corner of the fitting room Marcia thought she looked just like a Halloween witch in her robes and pointed hat - thoroughly phony. Rowena and Morag on the other hand looked perfectly natural in theirs, maybe because they were used to wearing robes? It was some comfort that Hermione's uniform became her even less - not that she cared, or even seemed to notice how chipmunky the pointy hat made her look.

The wand shop was at the far end of the street, a tall, narrow building with a wand, a short length of wood set in an ivory handle, lying on a purple cushion in the window and chipped gilt letters over the doors reading 'Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.'

The inside of the shop was also very long and narrow with just enough room for the eight of them. The Grangers, Mrs. MacDougal and Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch sat down in the four spindly chairs with their backs to the window while the girls stared fascinatedly at shelf upon shelf of long, narrow boxes. The place had a strange, eerie atmosphere that silenced Hermione and seemed to awe even Rowena and Morag, accustomed as they were to magic.

"Good afternoon." all four girls started as a very small, very old man appeared apparently out of nowhere in front of them. He was scarcely taller than they were and his wide, pale eyes reflected the watery light from the window like a pair of moons. "Let's see; you're Rowena Grunnion-Ffitch of course, favor your mother's side of the family don't you? And Morag MacDougal," a pale smile cracked his face. "A redhead like your father I see. And you two are?"

"Hermione Granger." Hermione gulped.

"Marcia Rumsey." stammered Marcia.

"What a lot of customers." he continued, soft voice not revealing whether he was pleased or annoyed. "Shall we start with you my dear?" to Marcia. She stepped nervously forward. "Which is your wand hand?"

For a moment she had no idea, then guessed it would be the one she wrote with: "The left."

"Hold out your arm please." Mr. Ollivander produced a tape measure from somewhere and stretched it from shoulder to fingertip, then wrist to elbow. Marcia could understand that, but why he needed her measurements from floor to shoulder, from knee to armpit and around her head she couldn't imagine.

"Each variety of wood has its own individual magical properties." he said as he measured. "As do the substances at the core of our wands: unicorn hairs, phoenix feathers and dragon's heartstrings. Just as each tree, each unicorn, each phoenix and each dragon is unique so is each wand. The wand chooses the witch, Miss Rumsey, not the witch the wand. Somewhere here on my shelves is the perfect match for you, it's just a matter of finding it." he pocketed his tape measure. A little rolling stepladder came scooting towards him and he climbed up to select a box from a shelf near the ceiling. "Hmmm...let's try this one; ash, eight inches, unicorn hair, pliable." the steps rolled over and he handed it to her; "Give it a wave."

She did. It felt no more magical than any stick of wood.

Mr. Ollivander plucked it out of her hand. "Close, close but not quite. "Rosewood, phoenix core, ten inches, nice and supple." But he had that one out of her hand almost before she'd got a chance to flourish it. "No, no. try this one; willow, bendy, nine inches with a unicorn hair." that one too was quickly snatched away. "Not there yet. Hmmm..." he studied the shelves. "A hardwood I think, definitely a hard wood. Ah! here we go, ebony with a unicorn hair, ten and a half inches, whippy."

This one felt different, special, it made her fingers tingle with warmth. She swept it through the air trailing glittering silver motes.

"Excellent. Excellent! Next?"

A little stunned by the first real magic she'd ever performed Marcia retreated, clutching her new wand.

Rowena got a spray of perfumed petals out of the very first wand she tried. Mr. Ollivander was delighted. "Aha, I knew it! Beechwood with a dragon heartstring, ten and a quarter inches, good and flexible."

Morag took three or four tries to suit, just like Marcia. Orange sparks fountained out of an eleven and a quarter inch mahogany with a dragon heartstring. Mr. Ollivander shook his head. "A powerful combination, very powerful. Take care not to be too emphatic in your spell casting, my dear."

But finding a wand for Hermione took forever. Even Morag began to look a little sorry for her as the boxes mounted higher and Dr. Granger started sneaking glances at his watch. Hermione was very red in the face and close to tears before a vinewood with dragon heartstring issued bright puffs of green-blue sparks when she waved it.

"There, there, my dear." Mr. Ollivander said, patting her shoulder. "Didn't I tell you, there is a wand for every witch? Some just take longer to find than others."

Hermione clutched her long box and didn't say a word.

"We really must be going." Dr. Granger said firmly once they were out in the street.

"Yes, of course." Mrs. MacDougal said quickly. "It did take rather longer than I told you, didn't it?"

Mrs. Granger smiled. "Too much time in that bookstore, our Hermione loves books."

"So I saw. Do let me show you out."

All three girls heaved sighs of relief as the Grangers trotted off up the street after Mrs. MacDougal. Mrs. Grunnion-Ffitch smiled wryly. "What an unfortunate manner that girl has."

"She's horrible." Morag said flatly.

"I'm sorry for her but I didn't like her." said Rowena.

"Oh you - you're sorry for everybody!" Morag snorted.

"Marcia's coming back to tea." Rowena said, changing the subject. "Join us, Morag?"

"Sure. If Mums doesn't mind."


	5. Ellie

Ellie Fergusson was about to find out she wasn't anywhere near as ordinary as she thought she was. Her father was a police constable at the yard and her mother had her hands full looking after the twins, Bette and Elsbet, and little Duncan.

They lived in an oddly laid out and decidedly inconvenient council house in Westminster which was too small for the six of them. Mum and Dad had been talking about moving ever since Dunkie was born and they were on the waiting lists of a dozen Greater London council estates but, as Mum said, they weren't quite poor enough to go to the top.

Since Ellie had the little ground floor bedroom it was she who started the kettle boiling in the morning, made the toast and set the table for breakfast. As usual Dad was the first one down, knotting his tie, followed by an avalanche of little sisters and brother, trailed by Mum already looking tired.

The doorbell rang, very surprising at this hour. "I'll get it." Ellie said quickly, glad to escape the pandemonium the twins invariably created wherever they went. She hurried down the hall, opened the front door - and her jaw dropped.

A plump, pink and white old lady with silver curls and china blue eyes stood on the doorstep, wearing a long blue dress and cloak and a pointed witches hat. "Good morning, Cedrella." she said pleasantly. "I am your Grandma Prewett. May I come in?"

Ellie was trying to find her voice to say that the lady had made some kind of mistake - her name wasn't Cedrella and she already had the regulation two grandmothers - when Mum spoke, high and shocked, behind her.

"Godleva!"

"Joan." said the old lady walking past Ellie into the house. "I have Cedrella's Hogwarts letter."

"But...but..."

The lady looked stern. "I have indulged you for ten years, Joan, but you cannot expect me to ignore my granddaughter forever!"

"I don't want -" Mum began.

"The question surely is what Gideon would want for his only child!" the lady interrupted sharply.

Mum's eyes filled with tears. "Gideon's dead. Your world killed him!"

"He was a soldier in a war, a war that has been won - at least temporarily." came the answer.

Ellie was looking back and forth between her mother and the strange lady in mounting bewilderment.

At that moment Dad appeared, a piece of toast in hand and a frown on his face. "Something wrong, Joanie?"

The lady swept past Mum to shake Dad by the hand not holding the toast. "Mr. Fergusson, I presume. I am Godleva Prewett, Cedrella's grandmother."

Dad gaped, recovered himself. "I beg your pardon. How do you do." looked at Mum, "I thought your first husband didn't have any family?"

First husband? Mum'd been married before? Ellie began to feel very funny inside. "You mean - Dad's not my Dad?"

"Yes I am, sweetheart." he answered firmly. "I adopted you when you were a baby." he was frowning at Mum. "We always meant to tell you. If I'd know you had any relatives on your birth father's side -"

"We've got to talk." Mum interrupted desperately. "Pat, Godleva come upstairs. Ellie, please go back to the kitchen and watch the kids."

The three adults went up the stairs to the sitting room, which was on the first floor along with the lavatory and bath, in this house of theirs. Ellie returned to the kitchen, her insides churning. Dad wasn't her real Dad? She had a grandmother and maybe other relatives she'd never even heard of?

The twins were to busy screaming at each other to notice anything but little Dunkie did. He came over and took Ellie's hand. "Something bad happen?"

She forced a smile. "I don't know yet."

After what seemed like a very long time there were feet on the stairs. The front door slammed as Dad went off to work and Mum and the strange Grandma came into the kitchen.

The twins stopped throwing toast at each other to stare. "You look like a witch!" Elsbet blurted.

"I am a witch." the Grandma said calmly.

"No you're not," Bette contradicted, "there's no such thing as witches."

"Oh yes there are." the Grandma produced what could only be a magic wand and waved it. suddenly there were two frogs perched on the table where the twins had been sitting. "What rude little girls you are." she said as the frogs began hopping about.

Ellie looked at her mother in horror but Mum didn't turn a hair. "Godleva."

The Grandma glanced at her. "Are you sure? They're much quieter like this." there was a loud splash as a frog landed in the milk pitcher, overturning it and flooding the table. "Or not." she waved her wand again and the twins reappeared, Elsbet dripping milk, and far from cowed.

"Cool!"

"Brilliant!"

The Grandma waved her wand again and the table tidied itself, milk evaporating, crumbs and eggshells vanishing, dishes and silverware flying to the sink which filled with suds. "Cedrella, my dear, we need to talk."

"Turn us into frogs again!" said Bette.

"Please, please, please!" added Elsbet.

"Me too, me too!" cried Dunkie.

The Grandma looked at Mum who sighed. "Go ahead. Anything for quiet."

Instantly there were three large, green frogs hopping excitedly around the kitchen. "Let's talk outside, shall we?" said the Grandma.

Mum sat down next to Ellie on the garden bench and took her hand. The Grandma conjured up a cushioned armchair for herself and the three frogs ricocheted happily around the little patch of lawn in the sunlight.

"Years and years ago," Mum began, "when I was just out of school and looking for work I rode my bicycle into a man where he shouldn't have been. Fortunately he wasn't at all hurt - and neither was I so we went to a pub for a drink." She was smiling but blinking back tears too. "He was, quite, quite wonderful and I fell head over heels in love with him. His name was Gideon Prewett."

Ellie looked involuntarily at the Grandma, who nodded. "My eldest son."

"Eventually I found out he was even more special than I had thought. He was a wizard." Mum continued. "It didn't matter, I loved him and we got married and were terribly happy -" she let go of Ellie's hand to grope for a handkerchief, unable to go on.

The Grandma carried on. "Unfortunately Joan entered our world at a dangerous time," she said quietly, a Dark wizard who called himself Lord Voldemort was trying to take power. My sons, Gideon and Fabian, were among those who fought against him."

"And they died, both of them, murdered by Voldemort's Death Eaters." Mum said bitterly.

"You were just a baby." the Grandma told Ellie. "Your mother - understandably - wanted nothing more to do with out world or our war and took you home to her own family. And I let her because I thought it was the best and safest course for you both." then to Mum: "Voldemort fell ten years ago, the Wizarding world is at peace again. Cedrella is a witch, and the last of the Prewetts. She has a right to know her heritage, Joan."

Ellie gulped. "I'm a witch!"

"Of course," that Grandma said calmly, "just like me."

She looked at her mother. Mum nodded. "Gideon told me our children would most likely be magical like him." she took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Ellie. your Dad's right, we should have told you all this long ago. But I - I wanted to forget." she faltered to a stop.

"And I let your mother have her way and raise you as a Muggle all these years." the Grandma said. "Which makes me just as much to blame, my dear Joan."

Mum managed a faint smile. "Thank you for that, Godleva." to Ellie. "We - your Dad, Godleva and I - have decided you should spend the summer with your grandmother learning about the Wizarding world."

"Now?" Ellie squeaked in alarm.

"Of course not." Grandma Prewett got up, vanished her chair and gave her a smile. "I'll come back this evening, after you've had time to pack and say good-bye to your Dad." to Mum. "He's a fine man, Joan, Gideon would have liked him very much."

"Thank you." Mum said again, blinking back tears.

"Till tonight." Grandma said, and vanished with a pop.

Ellie was still gaping at where she'd been when a large green frog landed with splat in her lap.

"Oh dear," said Mum, quite calmly, "Godleva forgot to turn the children back."

The rest of the day was spent packing and chasing frogs all over the house. One, Ellie was sure it was Dunkie, crawled into her hand and let her carry him around in her pocket but the other two - obviously the twins - literally bounced off the walls. Eventually Mum filled a basin with water, added a few stones from the garden and put it and all three frogs in the nursery closing the door and jamming a rug in the crack so they couldn't get out.

When Dad came home the first thing out of his mouth was; "Where are the kids?" Mum told him and his eyes popped. "Frogs! Joanie -"

"It's all right, Pat. Godleva will turn them back when she comes for Ellie."

Dad was shaking his head when he came into Ellie's room to help her close her tightly packed suitcase. "Frogs!"

"Mum doesn't seem worried." she told him.

He smiled faintly. "Well all this is old hat to her, if very new to us." seriously: "I'm sorry it all landed on you at once, sweetheart. We should have told you about Gideon years ago."

"Did you know he was a wizard?" Ellie asked as he forced the suitcase closed and locked it.

"No. But I knew you had another father and we were wrong to keep that from you." he sat down on the bed and looked at her straight. "You'll always be my little girl, Ellie. But you're his too. He was a good, brave man and you are his only child. It's right you should know about him and honor his memory -" he stopped, blinking hard.

"Oh Dad!" Ellie threw herself into his arms.

He hugged her tight. "You're still my little princess." he choked. "I'm not giving you away, just sharing you."


	6. Grandmother's House

**Ellie wondered how her new grandmother would come and fetch her, would she just appear out of thin air again or ride on a broom? Mum, who as Dad had observed knew all about these things, didn't think either was likely.**

"**You can't take loads on a broom, besides Muggles would see," she explained. "And slide along apparation is very uncomfortable, I'm sure she wouldn't want to subject Ellie to that."**

"**Muggles?" said Dad. **

"**That's what Wizards call normal people like us," Mum answered.**

**Ellie was looking out of the front window, not knowing what to expect, when a large and ancient estate car appeared with a pop at the curb. She gasped and so did Mum next to her. Then a tall man in a horrible, hairy tweed cap and jacket got out of the front and Mum gave a glad cry of "Uncle Ignatius!" and was out the door quick as blinking.**

"**Joanie my dear!" the man said, returning Mum's hug, then he looked over her shoulder at Ellie. She stared back, she'd never seen anybody with yellow eyes like hers - until this moment. "And this must be Cedrella. Spit of her mother isn't she? but with Gideon's coloring." So that was where her yellow hair and eyes came from. **

"**How did you do that?" Mum demanded of Grandma Prewett, who'd just gotten out of the back seat. "You can't have apparated a whole car!"**

"**Of course not," she answered. "It works on the same principle as a portkey."**

**Mum didn't seem to find that any more believable. "You turned a car into a portkey?"**

"**Not precisely," said Uncle Ignatius. "But the spell is similar. "How did you think I got my herbs to market, Joanie?"**

**Mum laughed a little. "I can't say I ever thought about it at all." Suddenly she seemed to notice Dad and Ellie standing there. "Ellie, this is your Great Uncle Ignatius. And this is my husband Pat Fergusson." **

"**Godleva said Joanie'd found herself another good man," the Uncle said gruffy, offering his hand.**

"**I hope she has," Dad answered, shaking.**

"**How is Aunt Lucasta?" Mum went on, happy and excited. "Oh it's so good seeing you both again! Godleva, you forgot to change the kids back."**

**Grandma smiled a little wickedly. "Are you sure you want me to?"**

**Ellie felt a moment of alarm, and judging by his face so did Dad, as Mum pretended to think about it.**

**After that things happened very fast. Frogs became kids again; Ellie's two suitcases and canvas bag were loaded into the car and hugs and kisses exchanged. The next thing she knew she was sitting next to her new grandmother in the back seat of the estate car with her family all waving from their little patch of lawn. **

"**Brace yourself, my dear," Grandma Prewett warned. And - Kawhoosh!**

**There was really no other way of describing it. First there was a feeling of expansion, like drawing in a breath, followed by an even more intense feeling of compression as if one were being squeezed into a straw and finally a 'whoosh' as one shot through the straw leaving breath, stomach and other internal parts trailing behind trying to catch up.**

**Ellie gave a great wheeze and looked out the car window. Her London street had been replaced by a country lane with a graveled drive branching off toward a green hill. "Here we are," Grandma said cheerfully. "Welcome to Badgerhill Farm, Cedrella."**

**The drive curled around the hill and the house became visible; a rambling brick cottage that looked as if it had grown up through rather than been built on and partially into the hillside. The irregular roof sagged in spots and was green with moss, and several crooked chimneys poked their way through it. The brass badger face of the knocker gave them a big smile as they walked up the path and the front door opened of itself letting them into a stone flagged hall with a big window seat at the back. A flight of wooden steps was recessed into the wall to their right with a three foot high carved badger at the bottom, standing upright and balancing the stair-rail on its head. **

"**Just leave the bags in the hall, Ignatius, until Cedrella chooses her room," Grandma said and Ellie followed her up the dark staircase to an upper hall just like the one below except for the wooden floor, and down a passage. "I doubt you'll want this one," Grandma continued, opening a door on left. "It's rather small and dark as you can see.**

**It was in fact larger than Ellie's room at home but what space wasn't taken up by a huge four poster bed was occupied by an equally enormous wardrobe. There was a table with mirror on a stand at the foot of the bed and an armchair under the one small window. **

**Grandma turned to open the door opposite. "This was your Uncle Fabian's room." It was much larger and brighter, with a big window in the back wall between two brass bedsteads, a rag rug on the floor and bright blue walls all hung with maps marked here and there in red or green. "Your father shared it when they were boys, that's why there are two beds, your parents had the room at the end of the passage."**

**Even if Grandma Prewett hadn't told her so Ellie would have guessed as much, the big, light bedroom looked so much like the much smaller one Mum and Dad shared at home. It had yellow flowered wall paper, though here it was buttercups rather than primroses and daisies, modern, white painted furniture and a yellow spread on the bed. **

**Grandma picked up a photograph from the bedside table. "This was the last picture we took as a family," she said sadly and handed it to Ellie. **

**She nearly dropped it, the figures were moving, in fact they were waving at her! The only one she recognized was Mum, sitting right in the middle with a baby crowing in her lap. 'Why that's me - it must be!' A square jawed, stocky man stood on her right, his hand on the back of the chair. He had curly yellow hair, a dash of freckles across his nose - and yellow eyes. Her father. Her real father. And he looked like her! It was a long moment before she could tear her eyes away. Grandma Prewett stood on the other side of Mum's chair, and her hair was yellow too instead of white. She had two tall, redheaded men on either side of her. The older one had to be Grandpa Prewett and the younger Uncle Fabian. **

**It took Ellie a while to find her voice. "Did Grandpa die in the war too?"**

**Grandma sighed. "In a way, dear. He never got over the loss of our boys, caught the Sighing Consumption and just faded away."**

"**And Mum and I went too," Ellie looked up at her grandmother. "Leaving you with nobody."**

**Grandma's sad face cleared and she gave Ellie a quick hug. "Oh it wasn't quite so bad as that. I still had your Aunt Molly and her brood. We'll pay them a visit after you've settled in. Would you like to see your old nursery?"**

"**Yes, please." Ellie still hadn't seen a room she wanted to sleep in.**

**The nursery was the first door on the second floor landing and it too had clearly been decorated by Mum. There was another flowered wallpaper, cornflowers and eglantine on pale yellow, and white painted woodwork including two corner cupboards and a window seat that opened into a toy box. Ellie loved it immediately but the furniture was too small; a baby sized table and two chairs and a little cot in the corner. **

**Grandma smiled. "Easily fixed!" She waved her wand and cot, chairs and table enlarged to just the right size. Then she passed it over the bed and Ellie's suitcases and bag appeared on the flowered spread. **

**Ellie blinked. Convenient though it was magic was going to take some getting used to!**

**-----**

**Magic took a LOT of getting used to - and it was everywhere at Badgerhill. Not only did photographs move but paintings talked - and so did the big oak framed mirror in the drawing room! 'How should I know?' it said, when Ellie experimentally asked it who was the fairest of them all.**

**The big iron stove in the kitchen worked by magic, which saved on coal, and dishes not only washed themselves but put themselves away. Ellie quickly learned to stay out of the kitchen after meals as china and cutlery have a very poor sense of direction. Beds made themselves too, which was creepy to watch, and anything you left out would put itself away unless you specifically told it not to.**

**Ellie couldn't quite believe she belonged in this world. She was just so ordinary, she always had been. Of course being a witch did explain how the walls of her bedroom had turned yellow, her favorite color, and why that nasty Stevie Gregg had lost his voice for a week after calling her names. The trouble was she felt like a Muggle, not a witch. Even buying her wand hadn't helped and she felt like a kid playing dress-up in her school robes. And then there were the odd ways wizarding people traveled.**

**About a week after Ellie's arrival Grandma announced they were going to visit Aunt Molly, but instead of heading for the front door she led the way into the dining room and lit a fire in the big hearth with a wave of her wand. **

"**Now watch carefully," she said, and poured herself a handful of sparkling powder from the delft pitcher on the mantle-piece. "This is floo powder. You throw it into the fire - so." Ellie jumped back as the flames roared up turning green. "Now you step inside," Grandma did so - to Ellie's horror. Standing in roaring green flames she continued calmly. "Now, you say were you want to go in a clear voice and off you go. Keep your elbows tucked in and be sure to get out at the right grate, wait until you see me. The Burrow!" and she vanished!**

"**Oh my." Ellie looked unhappily at the pitcher of powder, took a deep breath poured herself some and threw it into the fire. It took all her courage to step into the flames. They were warm, not hot, and didn't burn at all. "Uh - The Burrow!"**

**It was as bad as the car - and went on much, much longer. She was spinning, spinning with brief grate-views of lounges, dining rooms, studies, shops and what have you whizzing by. Suddenly she saw Grandma and fell out onto a thick fur hearth rug. **

**Ellie just lay there panting a moment then, slightly surprised that Grandma hadn't said anything or tried to help her, sat up. "Oh no!"**

**What she'd thought was her grandmother was in fact a life sized painting of an elderly witch in robes of the same shade of green hanging opposite the grate on an oak paneled wall. There was a sort of tapestry beyond her with a long table piled with books, funny looking things of silver or bronze, rolls of parchment and jars of quills underneath it. "I think I got out at the wrong grate." Ellie said aloud to herself.**

"**I'm afraid you did, dear," said the witch in the painting. "Where were you going?" **

**Ellie barely blinked. "The Burrow, that's where my Aunt Molly lives."**

"**Ah, you're a Weasley then," the witch nodded. "A fine old family. But you've overshot by quite a bit, I fear. This is Castle Perilous."**

**That didn't sound good.**

"**Not to worry, dear," the witch continued kindly. "Just wander about a bit and one of the family will find you and help you on your way."**

"**Thank you," Ellie said politely and picking herself up looked round for the door and with a final, "Good-bye" went out into the strange house - or rather castle. **

**She found herself at the end of a very long, very tall and very wide corridor ablaze with gold leaf. "Oh wow!" Well it was a castle wasn't it? Feeling very small and grubby she took a few steps towards the big door at the opposite end - and came to a shocked halt.**

**What she'd taken for windows were in fact mirrors, huge ones, but the Ellie reflected in the nearest of them was dressed in her school robes and pointy hat, not the yellow print dress she was actually wearing, and stood in a sort of stone cloister not the mirrored hall, nor did she jump back as Ellie did but went on looking out of the frame as if waiting for somebody. And somebody came. Another girl in robes and hat walked into the mirror, a very pretty girl with long black hair and tilty exotic looking black eyes. **

**Then the door at the end of the corridor opened and, small with distance, Ellie saw that very same girl looking at her with surprise. **


	7. Aureliana

The Lady Aureliana Ambrosine Ysabeau Nyneve Beausant was a very extra-ordinary girl: Hereditary Countess of Arroy, Lady Lile, Heiress of Merlin, Underkeeper of the Four Treasures, and so on and so forth for a quarter of an hour.

None of which was worth a bent broom twig these days. Her father the Earl was, of course, a member of the Wizengamot but hardly ever bothered to attend. His real work was as a magical painter and portraitist, a useful, interesting but hardly world shaking occupation. He was working on a painting now, Aureliana looked into his studio on her way down to breakfast.

It was a big, bare room brilliantly lit by the noontide sun streaming through the glass dome in the ceiling and the two windowed walls. The clock in the hall outside said eight thirty a.m. but it was always high noon in Daddy's studio - even at night. The canvas on the easel showed the almost finished portrait of a heavily bewiskered wizard in embroidered robes. Aureliana's father flashed her a quick smile.

"Just in time for the big moment," he said and picked up a wide, shallow pensieve sending ripples across the quicksilver thought stuff it contained. He waved his wand over it and the thoughts rose like cobwebs to tangle around it. then pointed them towards the painting. The thoughts, memories and personality of the late Bartolomew Mowsick, Doctor of Thaumaturgy, Order of Merlin, etc. flowed along Daddy's wand and onto the painting weaving themselves into the canvas.

The portrait stirred, rubbed his eyes. "Ah. Lord Arroy. And Lady Aureliana too, hello."

"Hello, Doctor. How do you feel?" Daddy responded.

"Like myself, quite like myself, only rather flatter." Dr. Mowsick introspected a moment. "Yes, definitely flat - most curious sensation."

"You'll quickly accustom yourself to it, sir," Daddy reassured him. "I think you'll find your new state has many advantages."

"I'm sure I will," The portrait agreed then continuing musingly to himself: "Yes, most remarkable but not at all unpleasant. No, not at all."

"Just hold still a moment, sir, as I put on some final touches," Daddy told him. "And then we're off to your new home in the Ministry gallery."

Aureliana closed the door gently and continued on her way.

The huge table in the cavernous dining hall was, as usual, laden with food enough to feed an army but with only three places laid before three chairs on the side facing the windows below Merlin's great throne. Two of them were occupied by Aureliana's little sisters.

"Did your ladyship sleep well?" nine year old Viviana asked coolly. The Beausant girls always called each other 'ladyship' when they'd been fighting - as they almost always were.

"Yes, thank you, your ladyship." Both her next sister and seven year old Ganicenda were mad because Aureliana was going to Hogwarts first. As if she could help being the oldest! "Where is Mummy?" she asked as the table helped her to scrambled eggs and toast.

"St. Mungo's of course, it's Thursday." Oh yes, of course, the usual committee meeting. Viv and Gani spent the rest of the meal talking across Aureliana in the friendliest way possible, trying to make her feel left out. Of course she didn't care a bit - well not much.

She was careful to eat a bit more than she really wanted - to prove she didn't care - then stood up. "If your ladyships will excuse me, I still have some packing to do!" she said and swished off leaving her sisters glaring after her.

In fact her school trunk was already filled and fastened but Aureliana headed back towards her room anyway - for effect. Normally it was westward, down the second floor corridor and around a corner but today her usual route brought her not to her own door but to the double height gilded doors of the Mirrored Gallery.

She frowned up at them, surprised. "You want me to look inside?" It was a rhetorical question and ss it didn't do to ignore the Castle's suggestions she obediently pushed one leaf of the big doors open and found herself staring down the long glass and gilt length of the hall at a strange girl, about her own age, with yellow hair and a yellow dress.

"It's you!" the other girl gasped.

"What's me?" Aureliana called back.

She pointed at the wall next to her. "You, with me in the mirror."

Aureliana walked all the way down the hall to see. Sure enough there they were, the two of them, in school robes strolling together through a stone cloister. "That must be Hogwarts," she said.

"Why are we seeing us there instead of our reflections?" the other girl demanded.

"Oh these are special mirrors," Aureliana explained absently, far more interested in what she was looking at. "They show the past, the present and possible futures." she glanced again at the two girls in the glass. "It looks like we're going to be friends. I'm Aureliana Beausant."

"Cedrella Prewett," said the other girl. "You live here?"

"Oh yes. My father's the Earl."

"What Earl?" Cedrella looked even more confused.

Aureliana was astonished. "The Earl of Arroy of course, Merlin's Heir."

"Merlin!" Her new friend's eyes went round.

'That's right." Now it was Aureliana who confused. "You never heard of us Arroys? But you're a Prewett!"

"Yes, but I didn't know it until last Monday," Cedrella explained. "You see after my father was killed my mother took me back to her non-magic family. I was just Ellie Fergusson until Grandma Prewett appeared on our doorstep with my Hogwarts letter."

"That must have been a bit of a shock," said Aureliana, trying to imagine it.

"You can say that again!" Cedrella agreed fervently. "It's not that I don't like magic," she added hastily. "It's really cool and fascinating and all that. But I don't really belong."

"Of course you do!" said Aureliana, genuinely shocked. "You more than anybody - Look." She pulled her new friend to another mirror and touched the glass. For a moment it showed the two of them, Cedrella in her yellow dress And Aureliana in her bright red robe, then it went dark.

They were looking, as if through a window, into a moonlit night with trees tossing in a high wind, rustling and making eerie shadows. Two cloaked figures moved along the palely illuminated path, carrying an iron bound chest between them. Suddenly one dropped his end and spun round, his hood falling back to show blond hair and a strained, determined face.

Cedrella gasped, "That's my father!"

"I know," said Aureliana. She knew this story well, she'd grown up knowing it. "Gideon Prewett and his brother Fabian. And that chest contains the Treasures of Logris, the trust of the Arroys. My grandfather gave it to them to hide - but the Death-Eaters found them first."

In the glass Gideon and Fabian Prewett stood shoulder to should in front of the chest, wands at the ready. Dark figures, hooded and masked, formed out of the night to confront them. Cedrella gave a little cry as the first spell flew like an evil red bird from a masked figure's wand to be blocked by a shield of silvery light conjured by her father. Battle was joined in earnest, the path and trees were lit luridly by magical fires. A masked figure fell and did not get up again.

Cedrella clutched her hands together, eyes glued to the terrible spectacle. Fabian fell, Gideon jumped over his brother's body as a pair of Death-Eaters tried to circle round him, hot white light flared and the two cloaks fluttered empty to the ground. Then a bolt of green fire hit him from behind and he fell too. Cedrella gave another little cry, and clutched at the hand Aureliana held out to her.

In the mirror the crouched figures of the remaining Death-Eaters slowly straightened and moved cautiously forward. One bent over the chest and started to lift the lid - then it was blasted out of his hand by a dragon of red-golden fire shooting upward to uncoil and glare down at the two Death-Eaters. Its jaws began to open and they fled, shoving each other aside and tripping over their long cloaks. A split second later a tall wizard appeared out of the air. Stars and moons glimmered on his robes and the red light of the dragon reflected in his half-moon glasses. He waved his wand and it dropped back into the chest, slamming the lid shut behind it. Then the wizard knelt slowly down next to the Prewett brothers' bodies. The light from his wand clearly showed a tear roll down his long crooked nose to splash on Fabian's still back.

And then Cedrella was looking at her own shocked face, shivering as Aureliana's arm went around her. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry. But I thought you should know."

"I want to know," Cedrella managed to answer. She wiped her eyes and turned away, out of the circle of Aureliana's arm. Her eye fell on another mirror across the way. "Look!"

They were there again, the two of them, sitting in a train compartment with four other girls. Aureliana moved closer studying the image. "I know her," she pointed to the one with long red-blond hair. "That's Rowena Grunnion-Ffitch. And the other redhead is Morag MacDougal - we buy our potions from her mother. No idea who the dark haired girl is though, or the one in black with the funny glasses. Gloomy looking isn't she?"

Cedrella agreed. The fourth girl had a thin, sallow face, and a mouth that turned down at the corners. Two of the others also wore glasses but hers were tinted blue and almost as big as goggles.

Aureliana took her new friend by the arm and steered her back up the hall towards the door. "Looks like we're all going to be friends," she observed waving at another mirror showing the six of them together again. This time they were sitting on a stone floor around a large golden colored cauldron with a magic fire burning blue beneath it and a shimmering steam rising from whatever was bubbling within.

"What do you suppose we're making?" Cedrella asked, intrigued.

Aureliana shrugged. "No idea. I'd like to know where we get that cauldron. Never mind, we'll find out!"

Cedrella's eye wandered farther along the hall. "Oh look!" she pulled Aureliana to another mirror. There they all were again, standing in a forest clearing, surrounded by luminously white creatures with dainty hooves and spiral horns in the middle of their foreheads. "Unicorns!" Cedrella breathed, wonderingly.

Aureliana was less impressed. "I wonder if its our herd here or the one at Hogwarts?"

Cedrella stared. "You've got a herd of unicorns!"

"We don't own them of course," Aureliana explained hastily. "But they do live in the forest here - and at Hogwarts too."

The reflections in the other mirrors were less interesting, showing places and people not even Aureliana knew: A crowded lumber room; a thin, unhappy looking boy with oversized clothes and black hair standing on end; a heavily wooded gully leading to a cave; a grey haired wizard with twinkling brown eyes and a kindly smile; people on broomsticks soaring and weaving against a blue sky.... "They've probably got nothing to do with us," she said. "But there's no knowing for sure, they could be in our future."

The tall gallery doors led not back into the west corridor but directly into Aureliana's room. "Thank you," she said to the castle, then turned to the other girl. "How did you get here anyway, Cedrella?"

She tore her eyes away from the living trees that lined the walls, latticing tall windows with their curling boughs, and from the astronomical ceiling with its great bronze gilt wheels and brightly painted planets. "What? Oh - I was traveling by floo powder, to see my Aunt Molly, and I got out at the wrong grate."

"Easy to do," Aureliana nodded. "Especially if you've never used floo powder before, which I bet you haven't."

"Got that right," Cedrella said ruefully.

"Don't worry. We'll call the Burrow and tell them what happened. Then I'll get Daddy to make you a portkey or something."


	8. Lilith

Lilith Tiphanelle Rothais Nigella Lestrange very much wished she was just an ordinary girl. She wished she was Muggle born or even a Muggle herself, that she was anything and anybody other than the daughter of convicted murderers - and cursed.

She wished her parents were dead but they were in Azkaban, which was worse. Lilith lived with her grandparents in rambling old Stranggore Manor on an island of gardens and wooded park surrounded by moors. The big, ancient house's hundred rooms were empty save for the few occupied by the three of them. Grandfather lived in three on the ground floor in the south western corner of the house, Grandmother had her little gabled bedroom and boudoir at the top of the north-eastern corner, and Lilith's nursery was in the south front overlooking the pond garden and the moors beyond. Her grandparents spent little time with each other and even less with Lilith - because of her curse. That was why everybody was afraid of her and avoided her, even the House Elves. She was an Evil Eye.

She opened those same weirdly pale, almost white, eyes early one morning in her big tapestry hung bedroom with the inlaid Indian furniture - alone as always. But steaming water stood ready in her basin and her clothes were all laid out for her by the invisible hands of a House Elf. Lilith washed, put on her layers of starched under-things, the tickly lisle stockings and plain black frock with its stiff white collar. Then she brushed and braided her long black hair and when she was quite ready walked into the next room where her usual breakfast of toast and fruit and tea was all laid out on a table in front of the empty fireplace.

"Good morning, Maledisant," Lilith said to the girl in the portrait above the mantle.

"Morning," she replied absently, painted eyes on the green and yellow parrot circling round her head. Her stiff brocade dress was exactly the same shade of green and her sharp little face was framed by an aureloe of pale yellow curls.

"What's wrong with Petruchio?" Lilith asked taking a piece of toast from the rack.

"No idea." Maledisant made a swipe at her pet, and missed. He flew into the still life over the sideboard and started to peck at the pears. "Stop that!" Maledisant shouted. Petruchio ignored her. "He's going to ruin that painting."

"It doesn't matter," Lilith answered opening the big lead latticed window and crumbling the toast upon the sill.

"I guess not," Maledisant conceded and stretched a hand into the still life to snitch the bunch of grapes ignoring Petruchio's squawk of protest.

A very large, very black crow arrived on the window sill in a flurry of inky feathers and began pecking up the crumbs. Lilith stroked the sleek little head with a gentle finger. "Good morning, Mertseger."

The crow paused in its busy eating to cock a yellow eye and give her a friendly caw. Lilith smiled palely in response. She'd never had a pet up to a year ago, animals didn't like her any better than people did. But then Mertseger had taken it into her head to make friends. Crows were rather magical birds in any case and Lilith's tutor had put a special shielding spell on her before he went away.

Lilith turned abruptly away from the window going back to the table. She didn't like to think about Professor Lupin. She'd been lonely all her life but hadn't known it until he'd come, and now he was gone again and she didn't see why. It wasn't as if anybody been hurt. Besides it was all that stupid boy's own fault for prying!

"You've got a letter," Maledisant said. She was sitting on the bed in her painting, the same as the one Lilith now slept in, eating the grapes.

Lilith stared at the big square yellow envelope next to the teapot. Who'd write to her? - except maybe Professor Lupin - she turned it over and read; Miss L. Lestrange, The Old Nursery, Stranggore Manor, Yorkshire. written in green ink. It wasn't the Professor's handwriting though. she opened it and two folded pieces of heavy parchment fell out.

"Dear Miss Lestrange," Lilith read aloud for Maledisant and Mertseger's benefit. "We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1st. We await your owl by no later than July 31st." She looked up. "It's got to be a mistake, I can't go to a school!"

"You'd hex the entire student body, and the staff too, in a week," Maledisant agreed. "You'd better tell your grandfather. He'll write the headmaster."

"They'll know I'm not coming when they don't get an owl." Lilith replied. She pushed the pieces of parchment aside feeling even more depressed then usual. If she was normal she'd be able to go to Hogwarts. If she was normal she'd have human friends not just a painting and crow, and her grandparents might have been able to love her in spite of what her parents had done. She got up, leaving her breakfast untouched. "I'm going to take a walk, want to come?"

"Sure," Maledisant reached back into the still life, her hand coming back without the grape stem but with Petruchio. Lilith whistled and Mertseger left the crumbs sailing across the room to light on her shoulder.

The two girls and their birds rambled through the long, dark paneled corridors with their matted floors and white molded plaster ceilings. Maledisant and Petruchio flitting from painting to painting; other portraits, groups, landscapes and allegories. Normally Lilith would have gone into some of the rooms: The velvet boudoir with its ivory figurines. The glass music room with its big windows and transparent harpsicord. The vine room with its painted walls. Or Professor Lupin's study where she still kept her books. But today she just walked, faster and faster, trying to outrun her unhappiness.

Of course she couldn't.

Maledisant began to fall behind, her path wasn't as easy as Lilith's, some of the allegorical paintings were especially hard to get through. "Wait up!" she called. "Why are you in such a hurry?"

Lilith stopped, smiling an unhappy, upside down smile. "I don't know. It's not like I have anywhere to go."

Maledisant gave her a sharp look. "Don't you start feeling sorry for yourself Lilith Lestrange, or I'll go hide again."

"Don't do that!" Lilith cried, genuinely alarmed. "I won't whinge, I promise!"

"You never do, I'll give you that," Maledisant conceded and continued in a conciliatory sort of way: "It's not much fun being a painting either, you know."

"I know." A thoroughly unsatisfactory existence was one of the things they had in common.

There was a pop and Mopsey, the House Elf who usually attended Grandmother, was there in the passage with them, big dish shaped eyes carefully avoiding Lilith's. "You're wanted downstairs, Miss."

Lilith blinked. "But today's not a study day!" Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays she met Grandfather in the Library for lessons.

"Sir Eudo and Milady want to see you in the green drawing room, Miss, not the library."

"Grandfather AND Grandmother?" Lilith said, even more surprised. She had tea with her grandmother on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She never saw both together except on Sundays when they all went to church.

"Yes, Miss. Now, Miss, if you please."

Totally bewildered and a little apprehensive Lilith looked around, she given no attention to where she was going, located herself and headed for the nearest staircase. The green drawing room was on the opposite side of the big black and white marble entry hall from the gold banquet room. It was full of people - or at least seemed so to Lilith who wasn't accustomed to see more than one or at most two at a time.

Her grandfather was standing, grim, gray and forbidding, in front of the big carved fireplace. Her little, birdlike grandmother was huddled into a green brocade armchair and next to her was -

"Professor Lupin!" Lilith flew joyfully across the room to embrace her former tutor. "You've come back? You're going to stay?"

He smiled, all the sad lines on his face curving up for a change. "Better than that." He turned her to face the fourth person in the room.

He was tall, as tall as Grandfather, but his white hair and beard had been allowed to grow long. He wore colorful robes of plum red and purple glittering with black and silver braid and, strangest of all, met her eyes squarely over his half moon glasses. His were light blue, very bright and quite fearless. Lilith found herself looking away, oddly unnerved. Not even Professor Lupin would risk meeting her eye for more than a second or two.

"Good morning, Miss Lestrange," the stranger said. "I am Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. I trust you have received your letter?"

"Yes," Lilith shot a quick glance at her grandfather for help. "I can't go. I- I -"

"Have a rather serious problem," Professor Dumbledore finished for her, "So Remus here has explained. However I believe I have a solution." He produced a box from his robes and opened it taking out a pair of goggle sized glasses, the thick blue tinted lenses set in heavy black frames.

Lilith took a step back. "We tried that. It didn't work, the glasses just melted." This time she looked to Professor Lupin for help.

He patted her shoulder. "Professor Dumbledore's won't."

"I'm almost sure they won't," the old wizard corrected. "If they do, well we'll just have to try again until we get it right." He smiled down at Lilith. "Put them on, my dear."

She did. Like goggles they fastened securely in the back and so couldn't fall off like ordinary glasses. To her surprise the world didn't look blue through them, despite the tinting everything retained its normal color.

Professor Dumbledore hunkered down putting himself at eye level with Lilith. "Now, look at me."

"That's not a good idea," Lilith said nervously. She didn't like hexing people.

He smiled a little. "We have to test your new glasses. I am prepared."

"It's all right, Lilith," said Professor Lupin. "You couldn't hurt Dumbledore if you tried."

"Try is exactly what she must do," said the older wizard. "Tell, me, Miss Lestrange, what usually sets off a hex?"

"Nothing - everything," she answered with her usual frustration. "It doesn't matter how I feel or what I think it just happens. I don't control it at all."

He nodded. "We'll have to work on that next. Hmmm...."

He stared into her eyes. It was making her feel very, very uncomfortable. She didn't like it at all. She felt the cold twist right behind her eyes, felt them flash. "There! It just happened."

Professor Dumbledore broke into a large smile, the bright eyes twinkled merrily. Lilith had never seen anybody look so happy. In fact she'd never seen anybody look happy at all. "And both I and my little invention are completely unharmed." He bounced to his feet. "I think we can call that problem solved," he said over her head to Lupin and her grandparents.

"You mean - you mean I'm safe?" Lilith asked, hardly believing it.

"Perfectly, as long as you keep those lenses on."

"I will," she promised hastily. She looked at her grandfather - a real look not a quick glance. "Then I can go to Hogwarts?"

He nodded with just a hint of a wintery smile. Lilith looked at her grandmother who was dripping tears, as she often did, but smiling through them. Then Lilith looked at Professor Lupin who was also smiling, as broadly as she'd ever seen him do.

"We're going to need your school list," he said.


	9. The Hogwarts Express

"Let me see if I've got this straight," Mr. Rumsey said to Mr. MacDougal. "You've come all the way down from Scotland in order to put your daughter on a train that will take her back to Scotland?"

Morag's father seemed equally puzzled. "The train is the easiest way to get to Hogwarts."

Mr. Ffitch grinned at them both. "I know it sounds daft but a straight line is not always the shortest distance between two points where magic is concerned."

Rowena, Morag and Marcia walked ahead of their dads each pushing a trolley with her school trunk. Rowena's also had a horned owl in a cage and Marcia's a cat carrier emitting loud, complaining meows.

"And I'm quite sure I've never seen a platform nine and three quarters," Mr. Rumsey continued. Neither had Marcia she pricked up her ears as Mr. Ffitch answered:

"You wouldn't have, we don't want Muggles accidently stumbling across us after all." He pointed ahead. "It's there between Platforms Nine and Ten."

There was nothing between the two platforms but a barrier. "Excuse me?" said Mr. Rumsey.

"Go ahead Morag," said Mr. MacDougal. His daughter pushed her trolley at briskly toward the barrier then – a split second before the front of the trolley would have hit - she and it vanished.

Marcia gasped, Mr. Rumsey gulped.

"Off you go, Rowena," said Mr. Ffitch calmly.

"It's easy," she said to the goggling Marcia. "Keep your eyes closed so you won't know when you're going to hit – and you won't."

Marcia closed her eyes before Rowena disappeared and started after her. "Bye Daddy!"

"Bye," he answered a little uncertainly from behind her.

She heard conductors calling, the rattle of trolley wheels, the thunder of feet and voices…then suddenly the quality of sounds changed to higher childish voice raised in excitement punctuate by the complaints of owls and cats. Marcia opened her eyes to find herself surrounded by crowds of school children, the occasional parent and of course owls and cats. Steam billowed from an old fashioned train engine painted a brilliant scarlet and she saw that Morag and Rowena had waited for her.

"Let's get aboard," said Morag.

The carriages were as old fashioned as the engine, divided into dozens of little compartments opening directly off the platform with a door at the other end to a passage running the length of the train. It was still early and the girls had their pick of compartments, eventually selecting one near the front of the third car. They got their trunks aboard with a great deal of huffing and puffing – there were no porters or conductors – then settled themselves in the worn velvet tufted seats.

Morag peered intently out the window. "What are you looking for?" Marcia asked curiously.

"Hermione! We've got to find three other people quick or we're going to have to invite her to ride with us!"

Rowena made a reproachful noise.

"Oh shut up, you know you can't stand her any more than we can!" Morag snapped.

"No but I'm –"

"Sorry for her," Morag finished, "we know."

"I'll watch for Hermione," Marcia told her. "You look for people to share with."

Both girls spent the next few minutes of anxiously scanning the growing crowd. Rowena leaned back in her seat with a regretful look on her face. Suddenly Morag half fell out of the window waving violently "Oi, Mrs. Prewett! Over here!"

Children eddied aside to make way for an elderly witch, complete with pointy hat, followed by two little girls, one dark, one fair, both tugging school trunks behind them. Morag opened the compartment door for them. "We've got plenty of room. Hi Aureliana, I thought that was you."

The witch waved her wand and the two trunks floated into the compartment and settled themselves in the luggage racks then she leaned down to give the blond girl a kiss "Have a good term, Cedrella, I'll see you at Christmas." The two girls climbed aboard after their trunks and the witch disappeared - literally.

Aureliana, a very pretty girl with straight black hair falling down her back looked at each of them in turn with big green eyes before turning to share an expressive glance with the blond girl beside her. "This is Cedrella Prewett, Morag MacDougal, Rowena Grunnion-Ffitch and -?"

"Marcia Rumsey," said Marcia, still anxiously watching for Hermione.

"We need one more," Morag said rather unnecessarily glued to her window.

Aureliana looked questioningly at Rowena, who sighed. "There's somebody we don't want to ride with."

"A regular horror," said Morag.

"She never stops talking for a minute," said Marcia.

"That bad?" Aureliana asked Rowena.

She nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"You know she's awful when not even 'Wena can stand her," said Morag.

"Oh God, I see her!" Marcia broke in sounding almost frightened.

Morag opened the door and popped out right in front of a girl wearing funny goggle like glasses with a crow on her shoulder. "Spare seat in here!"

…

Lilith had considered herself inured to crowds and noise after her shopping trip to Diagon Alley but that was as nothing compared to the scrum on platform 9 and ¾ ! She shrank close to Professor Lupin's side holding his hand tightly. Mertseger on her shoulder cawed warningly causing people to stare which didn't help one bit. They moved along the train looking for an empty compartment, the pressure of the crowd forcing them into single file with the professor behind. Suddenly a redhaired girl tumbled out of a door right in front of Lilith.

"Spare seat in here!"

Lilith could only stare, totally taken aback. She felt Professor Lupin's hand on her shoulder. "Thank you, Morag, that's very kind."

Clearly they knew each other. The redhaired girl looked up at him with a smile. "How are you keeping, Mr. Lupin?"

"Tolerably, tolerably," he answered picking up Lilith's school trunk, "In you go." He followed Morag and Lilith into the compartment and managed to wedge the trunk in the remaining space, gave all six girls a kindly smile and took his leave.

Lilith cringed into her corner seat and saw in some surprise that the two girls in the window seats were doing the same. A loud and bossy voice floated in through the open window:

"- I'm especially looking forward to transfiguration aren't you? I think turning things into other things will be amazing! Of course potions sounds very interesting too, and charms. My reading says that wandwork is very important –," the voice faded into the distance swallowed by the ambient noise. Morag and Marcia heaved sighs of relief and straightened up.

"That was her?" Aureliana asked.

"Hermione Granger," Morag answered grimacing. She looked at Lilith. "I didn't know Mr. Lupin had a little girl."

"He doesn't," Lilith answered shortly, "I'm a Lestrange."

"My grandmother was a Lestrange," Aureliana said calmly, "so was yours Morag."

"That's right," the redhaired girl shut her mouth then said a little tentatively, " I suppose you're Great Uncle Eudo's granddaughter?"

"That's right," Lilith said flatly. "My parents were Death Eaters."

"My father was a hero," the blond girl opposite her said suddenly, "but that doesn't make me one any more than your parents being villains makes you one."

Lilith looked at her startled and the girl smiled a nice and friendly smile. After a moment Lilith returned it. "I'm Cedrella Prewett," the other girl said.

Morag looked interested. "I didn't think there were any Prewetts in our generation."

"Grandma says I'm the last," Cedrella answered. "My mother took me back to the Muggle world when my father was killed apparently not many people even knew he'd had a little girl."

"I'm the last Lestrange," said Lilith. "And maybe that's just as well."

"My great grandfather says it is our choices that define us not our blood," Rowena said suddenly. "Like Cedrella said, you are not your parents Lilith and you don't need to be like them – unless you want to be."

"I don't!" she answered emphatically.

"I'm Rowena Grunnion-Ffitch by the way," the other girl continued. "Those are very odd glasses, Lilith."

"I have to wear them, I'm an Evil Eye."

"Really?" Morag stared in respect, "Cool!"

Lilith blinked, she'd never thought of her curse as 'cool'.

"My whole family can cast Vardogers," Morag continued and shrugged, "not bad but not that great either."

"Vard what?" Marcia asked.

"You know, forerunners – a sort of pet poltergeist that goes on before you making noises and such."

"Oh. I can talk to birds," Marcia offered.

"Another good one," said Morag.

"Grandma says I've inherited the Green Thumb gift from my father," said Cedrella.

"That's what I call cool," said Lilith firmly.

"It'll be a big help in herbology all right," Morag agreed.

"The Sight runs in my family," said Aureliana. "And you're a Rune Reader like you grandmother aren't you, Rowena?"

"That's right," Rowena agreed. "It looks like we've all got a special talent of some kind."

"I've got a curse," Lilith corrected.

"But only because you can't control it."

"That's so…" Lilith answered slowly. "Professor Dumbledore, he made these glasses for me, seemed to think I could learn to control it."

"Then you can," said Morag. "Dumbledore's the greatest wizard alive if he says it then it's so."


End file.
